Freedom’s surrender

Unbelievable numbers stream

Across the scrolling screens

Like in a Vegas slot machine

In an angry red-tinted hail

All sanity has left the mind

All compassion for humankind

Twenty-three guns left behind

And a blotted pavement stain

Sometimes a people suffers loss

That serves to make us less

And leaves the rational among us

Adrift in freedom’s thrall

Arms high I surrender and run

Where fog obscures the sun

Until the crimson hue is gone

And memory starts to fail

But the rain does not relent

And the ammo’s never spent

They say forged in innocence

It still drives the coffin’s nail.